@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Social Brand

The #140Confli: Fast, Informative & Interactive

by Leave a Comment

The #140Conf by Jeff Pulver is known for short presentations and interactions, but for Long Island it has turned out to be one of the most potent networking and learning experiences I have ever seen.

This fast passed, energetic event engaged the attendees, keeping it under 140 Characters @katcop13: summed it up in a tweet “The word ‘audience‘ is dead. It’s a conversation.”

The engagement was both real life personal interactions and throughout the twitterverse, so much so that @namnum: was the first to break the news “Just heard we are trending in NY!”

@Krochmal has been a great host, engaging the audience making sure that all attendees are getting an experience, even seeking out an entire room to find out what they are passionate about and what they are learning.

This event has featured few if any traditional presentations, many presenters and the panels made a successful effort to facilitate conversations between presentations and during the breaks. The topics included business, personal brands, success stories, the human element, startup issues, fashion, musical performances and this thing called Social Media.

While the event is still far from over, it has this professional wondering, whats next and where can we get more?

Latest Tweets from the #140ConfLI:

— Melissa_Kue Melissa Kuehnle

@farida_h Glad we got to finally meet face-to-face at #140ConfLI.

— KennyKane Kenny Kane

@Krochmal Did you host a talk show in a past life?

— treypennington Trey Pennington

“Hugs over handshakes…that’s what we do at 140 Conferences” @jeffpulver #140ConfLI

— longislandpatch Long Island Patch

LI social media rocks RT @jmolinet Follow the afternoon sessions Long Island 140 Character Conference live http://bit.ly/lStBmK

— PsgeToNirvana Lee Carlson

RT @dhfrench: “Don’t be afraid to fail; it’s how you learn.”-@elyrosenstock #140confli How true, how true….

— levyrecruits Steve Levy

@mzayfert “take the first step, make some noise, and change the world” #140confli

Social Media Can Change Lives, For Better or For Worse

by Leave a Comment

At this point, there can truly be no doubt about the fact that social media can and does change lives. It may not always be for the good, such as in the case of more than a handful of people who claim that status post on Facebook cost them their jobs.

Facebook Fail

Ashley Johnson, waitress at a pizza restaurant in uptown Charlotte N.C. found herself immensely frustrated when a couple came in for lunch and stayed three hours, which in turn forced her to work far beyond her usual quitting time. They also left her a tip she found offensive. Johnson did what many folks seem to do lately, she ran home and ranted out her frustrations on her Facebook page.

Unfortunately, like an increasing number of other random employees around the globe, she found out that the things you say on social networks, can and very well may, come back to haunt you. Managers at her company called her in to show her a copy of her Facebook page with the offending comments and explained to her that she was being fired for violating the policy that requires employees to never speak disparagingly about the company or its customers.

Then they notified her that she had also violated another policy that states that casting the company in negative light on social networks is cause for termination.  Does your company have this policy?

Twitter Triumphs

There are also many stories like those of Kevin Smith, not to be confused with Director Kevin Smith, who found a great job through his moderate and initially half-hearted Twitter efforts.

He wasn’t just looking for another job, there were plenty of those, he was looking for a better job. Freely admitting that he was usually slow to latch onto social medias, Twitter felt a bit different. Kevin openly admits that his first efforts on Twitter were little more than a bit of pathetic whining on the internet in 140 characters or less. However, he also quickly realized that whining into the world wide web wasn’t likely to help him better his position in life.

As many months of job applications, interviews, and trolling job boards went by without the results he was looking for, he began to notice a pleasant trend on Twitter. People of all kinds with a variety of influences, who had the same interest as he did, willingly followed him on Twitter, even through his whiney blurbs.

As he began to become more involved in a Ruby programming language following on Twitter, he noticed that a notable player, and fellow Ruby enthusiast that worked for a nearby company, was on his list. Checking into the company and finding a resounding message, he felt a bit of hope. He followed his followers lead to their company website and sent in his resume.

After a bit of impatient waiting, he shot a message to his Twitter friend to ask if his resume had been received. He was a bit upset to find out it had not been. So while he sent in his second copy, his Twitter friend ran to the office of the person who received resumes to make sure it went through. This time it did, and thereby began his relationship with his current company.

He learned an interesting thing after being hired. Many companies now search out the social media input of future prospective employees. Although Kevin’s rants had been lighthearted and nowhere offensive in nature, you may now have an idea of how a negative social media influence or character, may have prevented one more opportunity, and likely with Kevin none-the-wiser. However, the hiring manager did say that having interacted with Kevin over Twitter for months before hiring him, also made it feel a lot more like hiring a friend than a literal stranger.

The Jury is Out

Actually, they are just about to be sequestered in the case of Casey Anthony, a Florida mother who is charged with the murder of her young daughter. Heard about it? Most people have. Although the story itself would have certainly drawn national media attention, the fact that almost three years later the case, and the discussion of it, is still carried on daily on sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, as well as full emotionally charged discussions on just about every news post since the story began, has been an ever-present cause of concern for Anthony’s legal team.

Although it is certainly unlikely to be the last case in which the line of questioning for potential jurors include such queries as:

  1. Do you use YouTube?
  2. Do you have a Facebook account? Do you ever post status updates?

The Anthony case has been a virally charged one from the start, but any potential alteration in the flow of the court hearing due to social media interruptions such as jurors posting Facebook statuses or tweeting opinions on this case is unlikely. Because of the large investment the state of Florida has in this case, many aim to see that social media does not enter into the courtroom, at least not without permission. It seems that most understand how one slight slip may cause justice to lose on a technicality once again.

Has this Changed Our Human Make-up?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your glass-half-full/half-empty outlook, people haven’t changed entirely that much. Even before base media such as radio and television, people still wanted to be heard, to share their messages, and their stories. They just did so in books, magazines, and newsprint.

If you could remove the chatter and noise of our 21st century culture, you may also find that marketing and advertising hasn’t changed all that much either.  What has changed is how we are exposed to them. Obviously, from the previous stories, we also know that social media and its resulting benefits or its detriments are almost entirely up to us. So while social media certainly hasn’t changed the fact that we want to succeed, make our marks, and leave the world a better place for our children, it has certainly changed the format in which we have the voice to do so, each and every one of us.

Sources:

Can You Keep a Secret in the Twitter Age?

by Leave a Comment

Twitter has change how we communicate these days, and those who thought that the service is going to change the world in ways we cannot foresee, like Jeff Pulver, the founder of #140Conf. have proven to be correct.

But Twitter is, in a way, a double edge sword. As much as it can bring people together, pass information quickly and tell news as it happens, it is also a potentially dangerous tool.

The last events in the Middle East were enabled and perpetuated by the use of social media and especially Twitter. Whether you look at the way demonstrators passed information or cases such as Al Jazeera tweeting from Cairo when they could not report the news in any other form, social media played an important role.  The latest cases of relying on Twitter were reported in an article in Lancer, a medical magazine, when Japanese doctors used the network to get medicine to their chronically ill patients after the earthquake. The telephone communication was disrupted but the internet stayed on. It has become a convenient and wide spread tool, an “excellent system”, as one Japanese doctor puts it.

But consider other information that has been passed lately through Twitter that might have had an adverse result; during the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Sohaib Athar, an IT man living nearby, twitted:  “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” He continued tweeting about the explosions and gunshots he hears, but had no idea what was going on.

Had Al Qaida done its due diligence and monitored the tweets of a resident living near their leader, they would have known about the raid a little earlier. We can’t know for sure if there was something they could have done, but it raises the question; can you keep a secret anymore? He later tweeted:  “Uh oh, now I’m the guy who live blogged the Osama raid without knowing it.”

What did an actor, Dwayne Johnson (“The Rock”) know about the raid before the news broke? He suddenly tweeted “”Just got word that will shock the world – Land of the free… home of the brave … PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!” 45 minutes before the news broke.

What will happen with all the secrets? Remember the mayor of Los Angeles, Mayor Villaraigosa who was caught in an affair with a news reporter? All that would have come out earlier, had the neighbor who saw him in the middle of the night going into her apartment with dinner and a bottle of wine, had tweeted about it. It could have potentially changed the results of the elections.

In the days of Twitter, information can come from unexpected sources and has to be reckoned with if a secret is important and has to be kept under wraps. Twitter has had its moments, and while some believe that Facebook is the powerhouse behind social communication, I would argue that a Facebook message takes far longer to make its way around then the 140 characters that are breaking news, leading revolutions around the globe yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Sources:

TED – Ideas Worth Spreading

by Leave a Comment

One of the great things the internet has to offer is the ability to facilitate sharing of knowledge and ideas. The different Wiki’s (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikileaks) are proof positive that people want to share what they know for the benefit of all.

Another great thing the internet has spawned is TED – Ideas Worth Spreading.

It all started in 1984 in a conference of experts from three fields: Technology, Entertainment and Design. They gathered to share ideas, delivered in short speeches, at a conference. It was so innovative and successful that it continues strongly today with two Annual TED conferences. One in Long Beach/Palm springs in the spring and TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, UK in the summer.

The goal of TED, which is owned by a private nonprofit foundation and curated by Chris Anderson, is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to enable the great thinkers, the greatest visionaries and most inspiring teachers of the world, spread their ideas by providing them with a platform.

In the desire to create a better future, today’s TED invites the most interesting speakers, no matter what their field, to present the “Talk of Their Life” in 18 minutes or less. Those talks are photographed and released free online so millions of people around the world would be able to gain a better understanding of the issues facing the world.

Whether it is a talk by Sir Ken Robinson, who spoke about education in 2006 and said that schools are killing creativity,  (and 300 million people viewed it online), or Shai Agassi, the driving force behind a bold plan for an electric car, or Randy Pausch’s last speech at Carnegie Mellon University, when he knew he has only 3-6 months to live. The speakers are always fascinating. TEDTalks proved so popular that a new website had to be constructed in 2007 to accommodate all the traffic.

Over the years, speakers have included Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Billy Graham, Frank Gehry, Bill Gates, Bono, Annie Lennox, Quincy Jones and many more interesting people. All that information is available on their website for free viewing.

TED has also established TEDPrize which grants the winner $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World” using TED’s powerful network. Past winner include Bill Clinton, Bono and Jamie Oliver.

Sources:

LinkedIn IPO: LinkedIn Hits the Stock Market

by Leave a Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post on the social networking site LinkedIn, this business based site allows users to connect to past, present, or future business contacts in effort to exchange ideas, knowledge, or perhaps even new opportunities. It also helps users to build a working portfolio that is supported by the very companies, or the leaders of the companies, that are listed on your LinkedIn profile.

One of the best available sites for career recruiting and networking, increasingly more and more often, it has become less unusual for prospective employers to ask for a link to a LinkedIn account than ever before.

Stock Market Stalled

At an initial public offering of LinkedIn stock, shares were priced at $45 on Wednesday night, by the time the stock market opened this morning, the stocks had risen to $83 per share. Within just a few hours, LinkedIn (LNKD) stocks had risen by 131% to be $104.02. This brings the current value of LinkedIn to over $9 billion dollars.

This offering of 7.84 million shares is hands-down, the biggest net IPO since GOOG, or Google, went public in the summer of 2004. This goes to further show that somewhere lurks an immense group of investors who believe that smart money rest in social networking. One firm reports that LinkedIn may now be the most expensive stock in the country. With a current price that is around 275 times more than its earnings in the last four quarters, this certainly indicates that those groups of investors may, in fact, be right on target.

Sign of the Social Media/Networking Times?

As the LinkedIn IPO is being gauged for effectiveness by other social networking giants such as Facebook, Groupon and other similar social networking sites, others believe the IPO has also been controversial as many on Wall Street as well as those in Silicon Valley believe that some investors have been taken in by an Internet bubble.

Some investors are simply just confused about how we should value any companies that are debuting online. Although others, like IPO analyst like Scott Sweet, say that LinkedIn’s spectacular market debut was a great sign for other social networking companies.

Who Uses LinkedIn?

Alexa gives LinkedIn an impressive global ranking of 17 with around 14% of their referrals coming from search engines. Most users are females between the ages of 25 and 64 who are highly educated and more often than not are browsing from home. The site is listed under the Social Networking category.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTZ8Hpg1Zgc]

 

 Sources:

The PR State of Facebook

by Leave a Comment

In a few days in Silicon Valley there were some rather unusual ideas, stories, and news articles, pitched that insinuated that Google was invading their users’ privacy. PR agency Burson-Marsteller, even offered to assist a highly influential blogger write an Anti-Google op-ed, promising him it would be posted in places like The Huffington Post or The Washington Post.

Not ignorant of their own share of privacy or security shortcomings, they were likely none-too-happy when Burson’s offer fell apart as the blogger turned him down, then publicly posted the emails in which Burton had asked him for assistance in publicly maligning Google. Subsequently, this failure to communicate was compounded as USA Today latched onto the story and accused Burton of launching a “whisper campaign” about Google on the behalf of a client that was unnamed.

In a world of instant coverage on any type of event, those very elements on which Facebook thrives upon, it is quite difficult to understand how anyone at Facebook thought that it would be a remotely good idea, or one that was kept a tight secret. Is this a sure sign that Facebook executives are worried about recent Google social marketing elements such as the +1 system? Will their willingness to execute black hat behaviors cost them enough users to matter? Unlikely, but it has likely done irreparable damage to their reputation, at least for now.

Google?

Since many users may actually have seen or suffered from privacy issues from Google themselves. As usual, in most situations, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle of both sides. The problem is, Google has said very little about the incident and as of yet has made no public comment about the failed campaign. In a way, this could also lend the some weight to the original plan by bringing Google privacy issues even more into the public eye.

The real problem is that now that Facebook has made such an irrational and hasty decision that will likely cause them to suffer from some form of back lash, and any real issues that Google may need to address, could have been brought to light a bit more properly, will fall to the wayside as most publicity outlets and news releases will report it and spin it as the story in which Facebook failed in an underhanded campaign to publicly bash another company.

Love-Hate Relationship

Facebook’s most recent PR plan to smear Google was an embarrassment and failure on more than a public relations scale.

In the internet advertising world, Facebook seems to be on the losing end in effective marketing and product branding. If you monitor Facebook regularly, you know it is not uncommon to see someone ranting, raving, and railing at Facebook for some imagined, or even a realistic slight. A week or two later they are back, having forgiven and forgotten their source of displeasure, or at least enough to continue to use Facebook.

As Facebook has begun to integrate itself into everything from daily deal websites to major retail chain, we have largely come to depend on it as our go-to log-in integration of choice. This is predominately because Facebook integration sites will auto-complete most of the information that will commonly be required to complete a new registration for a website’s products or services. Users would certainly be frustrated and disappointed if Facebooks PR flog affected their Facebook experience.

Will Users Boycott Facebook?

Many groups openly boycott websites that make immoral or illegal decisions. However, just as many points above prove, it would be quite difficult to boycott a large interactive element of our social media usage, most certainly Facebook that so many now use for advertising, entertainment, social network, or even just chatting with long distance relatives.

 Of course there are a few obvious boycotting methods, anything from ceasing to use Facebook, refusal to integrate other programs and remove already integrated applications from your Facebook account, and even simply deleting your account.

PR on Facebook

Facebook has already proven to be an effective method of PR for a few businesses.

  • AT&T
  • Microsoft
  • WordPress
  • Coca-Cola
  • The New York Times

Although likely the best representation of the shortlist, many other smaller businesses have also found great advantage to applying Facebook capabilities for better consumer interaction.

Business Promotion

Facebook has proven a very handy tool in managing membership relationships for fans of your products, or even groups related to your business. This is a very cost effective tool for group, member, or fan management that will allow users to create events calendars, or even just supply other leads and information that could provide additional networking benefits for those same consumers.

Facebook Connect

Adding this handy tool allows users to quickly register with your website by allowing them to approve Facebook integration. This easy option is highly encouraging for those who may not want to spend time filling out many fields, even those who have interest in your brand.

Brand Affinity

One of the most important public relations elements that can be satisfied via Facebook. If you have a product or service that directly, or even indirectly meets a need and connects a user to their Facebook presence. With the text and visuals you have the ability to provide for easy viewing, this can be a great beginning in building the brand awareness that can be invaluable to your business.

 

 Sources:

Google: Social, Cloud and more

by Leave a Comment

It seems these days the biggest players in the computer world are raging wars against each other. And this war has the potential of changing the computing world as we know it.

Google wants a share in social media platform and working very hard to create a model that will work. They’ve tried it unsuccessfully with Google Buzz, and scraped the program when it didn’t work. Its newest attempt, called Social Circles, tracks the path Gmail users take through outside networks like Twitter and LinkedIn.

At the beginning of May an e-mail went out to many journalists and bloggers saying: “Google quietly launches sweeping violation of user privacy!”  It whipped the news media into frenzy. According to the e-mail Google was using the little known feature, Social Circles, to “Scape and mine social sites from around the web … and shares that information.” It was traced back to the big PR firm Burson-Marsteller.

When influential privacy blogger Christopher Soghoian was contacted with an offer to help him draft an article about the subject, he wanted to know who is paying the firm for this job.  The PR firm would not divulge the name of its customer. To warn others, Christopher posted that e-mail exchange on his blog instead.

A few days later Facebook admitted to hiring the PR firm to spread rumors about Google’s user privacy. Well, somewhat admitted, anyway. They admitted to wanting to draw attention to that privacy issue, and it wasn’t meant to be a smear campaign. Facebook and the PR company apologized and admitted mistakes (More to come on this tomorrow).

At the world Economic Forum, held in January of this year, Google’s then CEO Eric Schmidt said that Facebook is not the real competitor to Google, but Microsoft.

Whether it had something to do with his replacement is unknown, but finally, two years after Google released its Chrome browser it is about to  launch its first operating system Chrome, threatening the dominance of Microsoft’s Windows.

Google believes that the way the current operating systems work, whether Windows or Mac, is “so 20th century”. Data is stored on the computer’s hard drive, so if it crashes or is stolen, the data disappears with it. When computers break, it is time-consuming and expensive to fix.

For businesses, the expense is even steeper. After spending money on fixing the computers, you end up with an old one with not enough space. It takes backing up and securing against viruses and Trojan horses. Many companies forbid their employees from bringing in thumb-drives for fear of outside viruses getting into the system. The business spends money on IT personal to keep the computers going smoothly. NetApplications, a services firm, says that about 50% of businesses still use Windows XP, a 10 year old operating system. They did not upgrade to Vista or Windows 7.

Google’s solution? A cloud based operating system called Chrome OS which is about to be unveil on June 15.

Everything will be on the server, not on the desktop. No need for a huge hard drive to store information, no need to back anything up. All a user will have to have is a way to connect to the server.

About 20 years ago Oracle CEO Larry Ellison predicted that a “thin client”, a user without a hard drive, would be the future of business computing. There is finally a serious attempt to do that.

The server will be accessible immediately, no waiting time for booting and updating. The business can be accessed from anywhere in the world, from any computer that runs this operating system.

But Google went a step further and changed the business model as well; for the first time Google is providing both the operating system and the computer (the hardware) in a package deal. For $28 a month ($20 only for government and schools) companies can rent a 3G “Chromebook” from Google and get support, all the programs, and exchange and upgrade the equipment. No need to buy computers or programs, no need for an IT department. “We think this can fundamentally change the way people use computing in companies.” Says Sundar Pichai, Google’s SVP for Chrome.

Google partnered with Samsung and Acer to build the hardware. Different kinds of laptops will be available in June. Thin, light, without a hard drive, for the price of a tablet ($300 – $500).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVqe8ieqz10&feature=player_embedded]

Sources:

TweetStats Real-Time Twitter Statistics

by Leave a Comment

There seems to be an entire industry devoted to creating Twitter tools. Some are highly effective and worth the few moments it may take to register or login to their respective systems. Others tend to make a quick debut, likely via Twitter or another social media, and then quickly fade into the background as a victim of not enough features, or too complicated or spammy of a registration process.

With so many social media marketers standing up to take notice of every rise and dip in statistics, many may use a variety of tools to gauge how their marketing efforts may be influencing their brand awareness and subsequent sales.

There Be Fairies Furnishing ur XML

Along with a rather unique loading message, TweetStats supplies one of the first third-party Twitter applications to those who wish to find out basic statistics about their account including:

  • Tweets per month
  • Tweets per selected day
  • Tweet density
  • Aggregate hourly and daily tweets
  • Interface statistics

Users can even check out their Tweet Clouds to see which words are most frequently used by them or in reply to users tweets.

Monitor the TweetStats of Other Users

TweetStats can also be used to monitor the status of other Twitter accounts as well. Users can check on the stats of their favorite brands, closest competitors, and up-and-coming companies they may have an interest in.  It can be used as a highly effective tool for those who may want a birds-eye view of their toughest rivals’ social media campaigns.

Who Uses TweetStats?

Alexa says most users spend around a minute on page views and around four minutes on site examining their Twitter statistics. With a page rank of 14,884 in the U.S. statistics show that most users are Hispanic, highly educated, childless females, ages 25 – 34 who tend to browse from work. An unusual stat for TweetStats shows that in the city of Königstein, Germany, TweetStats page ranking is at #31. Lifetime TweetStats statistics show a lifetime steady growth in popularity for this social media tool.

FEATURED USERS!!!

This is an impressive affordable way to increase your twitter followers, it uses banner advertising on the tweetstats site to allow you do twitter follwer advertising for as little as $40. The system will generat an impression count, a banner from your twitter account and then pay with Credit Card or PayPal and your campaign is underway. This is a wonderful little feature that can help you increase your twitter followers and because it’s tied to tweet stats, you can count onthe fact that they are quality followers.


 Sources:

Main Stream Social Media: Foursquare, Twitter and the NYC Mayor

by Leave a Comment

If you needed proof to how much social media is becoming the mainstream media, here’s a little tale:

Mayor Bloomberg, of New York City, made April 16 the official “Foursquare Day” in the city of New York.

Foursquare.com, a location based application that offers its subscribers the ability to “check in” through their smartphones and text messages, into an establishment to tell their friends where they are at the moment. By doing so users get prizes, collect virtual badges and redeem them for free stuff. They can also meet other users whom they don’t personally know but are at the location at the same time, and, as they say, let serendipity take its course. Foursquare has more than 8 million users.

So Mayor Bloomberg visited the Manhattan office of Foursquare, a social media platform, and made a proclamation through Twitter: “I’ve officially declared 4/16 @Foursquare Day in NYC #4sqday,” he tweeted and posted on Facebook as well. Together he reached at least 100,000 followers (70,680 on Twitter and 30,660 on Facebook).

Why this date? 4/16 – four squared. And the company is trying to get other cities around the world to declare it so for next year.

What a way for a mayor to boost his city’s economy.

A day later we learned the results: 3 million people checked -in in New York City alone and a lot of activity in charities they support. Foursquare events collected food, donated money to Japan disaster victims, supported the Red Cross, Humane society and more. On their blog they write “We love the fact that 4sqday helped contribute to these causes in a spontaneous, grassroots way” Mayor Bloomberg.

Sources:

Mobile Advertising is Expected to Reach 5B in 2015

by Leave a Comment

Whether you are aware of it or not, the iPad and its clones have created a revolution. They are changing the using habits of computer users. Tablets are expected to outsell desktop computers as soon as the end of this year. Coupled with the rapid rise of smartphone sales, it can potentially result in millions upon millions of additional mobile searches, sites visits and transactions done on mobile devices.

Google’s dominance is still grabbing most of the internet advertising dollars. But with over 100,000 apps and growing, even Google is trying to get a foot in the door of the applications market. Google is also doing some very interesting research on the user habits of mobile connectivity.

Google reported that display ads on Youtube increased by 50% from 2009 to 2010, selling 2 billion views per week. It is well known that Youtube is one of the most accessible and viewed mobile app.

At the end of 2010, Google surveyed 5,000 US adult users of smartphones and published some interesting statistics:

–          Activity on smartphones:

  • 81% said they use it for browsing
  • 77% did a general search. General search includes general information, search for local establishments and specific retail information
  • 68% were using different apps and
  • 48% use it for video viewing

–          Search patterns:

Action orients searches: The first on the list are the big search engines. The next most visited sites are the social media sites, after that comes retail and video content. It’s amazing to find that 90% of respondents indicated that their search resulted in direct action. One in four recommended a product to others as a result of a search.

Local information: 95% of users said they use their smartphone to locate local establishments. 88% of those follow it with action within a day. 75% say they contact an establishment as a result of the search, 61% made a phone call and 59% physically traveled to the business.

Purchase driven searches: 80% said they use their smartphone to assist them in shopping, in activities such as looking up competitive pricings. 75% of those end up making a purchase in the store.

That is why the U.S. is expected to grow to $5 billion spent on mobile advertising by 2015, according to research done by Smaato/mobileSquard. They point out that more than half of smartphone users in the U.S. did not yet see an ad on their phones yet – that is approximately 160 million users in the United States alone. Of those who did see an ad, 59% clicked but didn’t buy, 16% clicked and completed the purchase on a computer and 25% clicked and made a purchase. With the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones these number have a lot of room to grow.

Sources: